


Cat Tales

by mizdiz



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Cunnilingus, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Prison (Walking Dead), Sex, daryl eats pussy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-17
Updated: 2018-06-17
Packaged: 2019-05-24 10:20:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14952812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mizdiz/pseuds/mizdiz
Summary: There's a cat with a white-tipped tail that's taken with Daryl. In the woods, there's a frog in the pond behind the cattails. Sometimes the only way to make the bad bearable is to create your own moments of good. Sometimes, in a world like this, you've got to remind yourself that not everything is lost.Takes place between season 3/4.





	Cat Tales

**Author's Note:**

> idk y'all. this was in my head. now it's on this website. enjoy, kudo, comment, etc.
> 
> deuces,
> 
> -diz

The Georgia heat was oppressive, even as the sun began to set. The thick, heavy air surrounded him as sweat he couldn’t be bothered to wipe away pooled along his brow and slid down his cheeks. He patrolled the fence line, his faithful crossbow slung over his shoulder. Walkers snarled at the smell of his fresh flesh, pressing their decomposed faces into the wire. Every so often he’d take his knife and drive it into a softened, rotted skull, and watch with satisfaction as the body collapsed onto the ground. 

 

“How’s the fence holding up?” came a voice from behind him. He didn’t jump, but instead turned around and eyed Carol mildly as she walked towards him, plate in her hands. Somewhere in his subconscious he’d heard her coming. He thought back. Light, gentle footsteps trampling through the grass; the sound of slightly heavy breath trying to go in and out in the suffocating air—yes, he’d heard her, but hadn’t registered her as a threat, and so hadn’t bothered with acknowledging her approach until she’d already arrived.

 

“It ain't coming down tonight, but it ain’t gonna hold forever,” he said, accepting the plate as Carol held it out to him. At the smell of cooked meat his stomach growled, and he realized for the first time that he was famished. Carol gave a slight grin, having clearly heard the sound of his hunger. 

 

“You’re lucky I pay attention to your basic needs,” she teased, nudging him with her elbow. “Somebody’s gotta.” 

 

In response, Daryl made a “hmph” sound, and turned back to the fence, gazing out past the walkers with their hands forever reaching towards him, out into the field, up to the treeline, and he felt a pang of longing. The prison was safe, and he had a sense of purpose for the first time in his life, protecting what he now considered to be his family, but a part of him would forever live in the woods. He’d go for a hunt tomorrow, he decided. He’d have Glenn take his guard duty. The fucker owed him anyway, since Daryl had almost lost an arm in the process of getting the condoms he’d requested. 

 

Movement came from beside him, and he glanced over to see Carol lowering herself to the ground, bringing her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. She peered out into the world beyond their safe haven as well, and Daryl briefly wondered what it was she longed for. The list was surely too long, he decided, and he walked over and plopped down ungracefully beside her.

 

They sat in companionable silence. That’s something he liked best about Carol; she could handle the quiet. Everyone and their dog knew Daryl wasn’t a talker, but she was the only one who met him at his level instead of trying to pester him into rising to theirs. What was it about silence that made people want to run their mouths over such inane things? People spoke with such little purpose, but Carol kept the inanity to herself, at least in his presence, and he appreciated her respect for him, even if he didn’t wholly understand it. He wasn’t used to being respected; to be frank, he’d never thought himself deserving of it. 

 

He picked at his food with his hands. Carol had known better than to bother with a fork. He chewed with his mouth open and licked his fingers, and she didn’t bat an eyelash, but instead just kept on gazing out past the walkers, the whisper of a contented smile on her lips. It took him a moment to realize that he’d stopped watching the forest, and instead was watching her. It unsettled him that he still felt that same pang of longing.

 

But before he had a chance to think too hard about it, something brushed up against his legs. He startled, his hand shooting to get his knife ready and poised as he looked down and came very close to driving his blade into the bony frame of a small tabby cat. 

 

“Jesus,” he said, lowering his weapon, as Carol laughed.

 

“Where’d she come from?” she asked. 

 

Daryl hadn’t a clue. He didn’t know how the cat could have slipped past the walkers unscathed, but he couldn’t see anywhere else she could have come from.

 

The cat was striped grey and black, except for a puff of white on the very tip of her tail. She had mats around her face and backside. She rubbed up against his shins again, and looked up at him expectantly. Her nose twitched a she sniffed the air, and she gave off a purr that rivaled his motorcycle. He frowned at the cat, at his plate, and then back at the cat again.

 

“No,” he told her flatly. He pushed her away with the side of his boot. The cat stumbled but was undeterred. In fact, if anything, she became more confident. She reapproached Daryl and leveraged herself on her back legs, placing her front paws onto Daryl’s thigh. She shoved her nose directly into his plate of food, before he shoved her away again with the back of his hand. Carol laughed with delight next to him.

 

“Go ‘way,” Daryl muttered at the cat. He wanted to tell her that she should be thanking her lucky stars—that had she crossed his path while they’d been on the road she would have taken an arrow to the head and become dinner. Instead, the cat just eyed him smugly and turned to walk away. She sauntered over to a patch of grass and weeds, and curled into a ball in a sunbeam.

 

“Don’t you want a pet cat?” Carol teased him as she grabbed a bottle of water from a bag slung over her shoulder. She took a drink and added, “I think it’d be cute.”

 

“Stop,” Daryl said, holding his hand out. Carol handed him the water and he took a few gulps, only to nearly choke to death when, out of nowhere, the cat leapt and landed squarely on his lap. Daryl spilled water down his shirt, and just barely caught his plate before it went crashing into the dirt.

 

“Oh bleeding mother of—” he said. He thrust the bottle back at Carol and then took hold of the cat by the scruff of her neck. He lifted her off his lap and then tossed her, a bit rougher than necessary, away from him. She landed hard on her feet beside the fence line. The walkers’ growls intensified, but she paid them no mind; simply licked herself clean of dust, and sat down, her gaze still decidedly fixed on Daryl.

 

“You’ve got a friend,” Carol said.

 

“I’m about to shoot that damn cat if it doesn’t leave me be,” Daryl replied.

 

“Don’t you dare.”

 

Daryl made a ‘we’ll see’ face, but didn’t comment. Instead, he asked, “What’ve they got you doin’ tonight?” 

 

“Kitchen duty, so feel free to take as long as you’d like with that,” she said, nodding towards his plate as he picked at what was left on it. “I’m not exactly itching to get back there.” Daryl granted her a small laugh. “How ‘bout you? When are you done here?” 

 

“Ten.”

 

“Maybe I’ll swing by your bunk? Bring cards, play a few rounds of Gin?” 

 

Daryl gave what he hoped was a nonchalant shrug, as though he didn’t care one way or the other. “If you want. Don’t know why you would, though. I’ll just kick your ass aga—are you fucking serious?!” He was interrupted by the cat, as she pounced at him and dug her claws into his jeans. He shook his leg to try and get her off, but she clung on tight. “Ok, ya know what?” Daryl said, conceding defeat. “Fine. Take it.” He picked up the last of his rabbit meat, made sure the cat was watching him, and flung it off somewhere in the yard. The cat unlatched itself from Daryl and chased it down.

 

“Softie,” Carol whispered in his ear, and when he turned to look at her she was getting to her feet. She dusted off the seat of her pants and then held out a hand. “Done with that?” she asked, and Daryl gave her his plate. “Thanks. Ten tonight?” He nodded. She smiled, and headed back towards the prison.

 

He kept his eyes trained on her until she disappeared inside. Once she was out of view, he looked back over to where the cat was eating part of his dinner, but just as mysteriously as she had arrived, she was gone.

 

—-

 

Three days later, Daryl found himself with a rare moment of free time. Usually he had food to hunt, spaces to clear, or just general chores around the prison, but that afternoon everyone was fed, Maggie and Rick were on the fence, Michonne was in the watchtower, and the place was clean, so Daryl ditched the others and went to his favorite spot. It was in the blind spot of the west watchtower, tucked away in a corner where the walkers couldn’t reach. If he got there in mid-afternoon, like he had today, he would be situated directly in the path of the sun. He lowered himself onto the grass, leaned his head back against the concrete wall behind him, and let the sunlight rejuvenate him.

 

He was not ungrateful for the prison, far from it, but Daryl did not like being confined, and what was more confining than a literal prison? For the first full month of their stay there, Daryl had refused to even sleep in a cell, just because the mere thought of being inside one stirred up emotions inside him that quite closely resembled terror.

 

Walls. Bars. Fences. They made him remember the hollow emptiness of his belly from being locked in his room for two days for “being a nuisance.” They reminded him of his brother’s chokehold when he’d go off on something small during a crystal binge. They reminded him of the white-hot snap of his daddy’s whip.

 

In the yard he was still stuck behind the prison gates, but at least he was outside; at least he could actually breathe. Even breathing in the faint hints of death that now tainted every corner of Georgia was better than breathing the stale, recycled air inside.

 

His skin grew hot, but not unpleasantly so. He never burned, never had, but simply sported a perpetual tan that any true outdoorsman had. With his eyes still closed, he pushed back his greasy hair from his face. He needed a haircut and a shower, but he couldn’t be bothered with the first, and he was the most claustrophobic in the dark, damp prison bathrooms, so he was waiting until his odor was a matter of public safety to do the second. Nothing smelled sweet anymore, anyway, not even the wildflowers poking up between weeds could outmatch the smell of rot.

 

He sat in still silence for some time, mind still running involuntarily like a hunter. Fleet-footed steps on gravel a few yards away said Glenn had joined Maggie and Rick at the fence. The sharp twang of a shovel hitting dirt told him Carol was planting seeds in the garden. The world was a collection of individual stories he could read just as easily as—perhaps easier than—a book. 

 

He was so engrossed in picking out the tonal differences between Hershel’s real foot and his prosthetic, that he actually yelped when he received a sharp pinch on his elbow. His hand found his knife, his eyes flew open, and once again he found himself nearly driving a blade into the side of the damned black and grey cat with the white-tipped tail.

 

“You lookin’ to die?” he asked her angrily with a scowl, lowering his knife to his side. He examined his elbow where the pain had already faded. She hadn’t drew blood; hadn’t even left a mark. She’d just given him a quick nip to get his attention. 

 

“I don’t got nothin’ for you,” he told her. “So shoo.” He attempted to bat her away, but she merely side-stepped his hand and leaned in to rub her head on his knee.

 

Where had she even come from? For a second time, Daryl was left to ponder where she could have snuck out of without him hearing her. Daryl could tell when a squirrel was in a tree twenty feet away, but this cat was slick enough that it took a bite for him to notice her. 

 

Good thing she wasn’t no walker.

 

“I told you, I ain't got food,” he reiterated, but the cat didn’t seem bothered. She climbed onto Daryl’s lap and began kneading her paws on his thigh. Her claws pin-pricked his skin through his jeans, toeing the line between tolerable and a little too sharp.

 

A fleeting thought passed by of what Michonne would say if he  _ actually _ got fleas, but Daryl was too baffled to do anything. The cat was relentless. He leaned back again, and watched as she walked herself in a couple circles and curled up in a cozy, tight ball. 

 

Her blind trust bemused him. Daryl knew animals, and of what he knew, wariness of people was intrinsic to their survival. But this cat seemed to be a survivor, despite her trust. Maybe it wasn’t  _ people  _ she trusted. Maybe it was just Daryl.

 

He felt mildly flattered.

 

Absently, he took a finger and scratched behind her ear. She made a soft chirping noise and lifted her head long enough to blink her sleepy approval at him. She tucked her head back down and began rumbling a strong, contented purr. 

 

He gave her a few more scratches, and then lowered his hands to his sides. He shut his eyes again and let himself fall into a light doze.

 

When he awoke, the cat was nowhere to be seen.

 

—-

 

Carol had had a stressful day, he could tell. The same way he would have known Beth had been up all night with Judith, and that Maggie had gotten laid that afternoon, if he’d been bothering to pay attention to them, but he wasn’t. He was only paying attention to her.

 

Her shoulders were tight as she spooned beans onto the plates of lined-up men and women; she always carried stress in her shoulders. Her frown lines were deeper than usual, and she kept cracking her knuckles. Carol only cracked her knuckles when she was preoccupied.

 

She’d had med duty today, like she always did on Wednesdays. He wondered what had gone wrong.

 

Eventually, she switched spots with a newer woman Daryl hadn’t learned the name of yet, and got a plate of food herself. He scooted over to make room for her before she even turned to search him out. 

 

“You okay?” he asked her before her butt had a chance to hit the chair. She blinked at him, perhaps surprised he could see through her so easily, but he figured that really shouldn’t be shocking to her anymore so he didn’t dignify it with a comment.

 

“Long day,” she said flatly, taking in a spoonful of beans.

 

“Shit day?” 

 

“Shit day,” she agreed. She didn’t elaborate right away, and he didn’t press her—merely watched her push her food around on her plate. She eventually sighed and said, “Rachel, the pregnant woman we took in? We’re pretty sure she lost the baby.” She paused to sip on some water, which Daryl knew was her way of collecting her thoughts. “We don’t know for sure yet, she wasn’t far enough along to hear the heartbeat with a stethoscope, but there was a lot of bleeding. A lot. And she was a wreck.” 

 

And wrecked you in the process, Daryl thought but didn’t voice. Carol was strong, stronger than most, but Sophia was never far from his mind, so he knew she couldn’t be far from her’s either. He was almost angry at this woman for bringing it all back to the surface for Carol, as if it was the woman’s fault she’d had a miscarriage. No, he thought, anger wasn’t the right emotion, but damned if he knew what the right one was. He was certainly not known for his ability to properly name and appropriately experience his feelings. 

 

(A searing pain in his side as he threw a saddle on the floor and yelled “stupid bitch” at a domestic violence survivor who merely voiced concern over his well-being? Yes, definitely not known for that.)

 

“Not your fault,” he grunted because he had nothing else to offer.

 

“Didn’t say it was,” she said, but with a smile that acknowledged his attempt at sympathy.

 

She glanced over her shoulder, and when she saw no one was looking, she reached into her pocket and pulled out an extra piece of pork she’d evidently nicked from the serving table. She handed it to him, and he took it with a furrowed brow.

 

“I already ate,” he reminded her.

 

“I know, it’s not for you, it’s for your friend.”

 

It took him a minute to understand what the hell she was talking about, but when he did, he flushed and immediately averted his gaze.

 

Every time he’d been out by himself for the past two weeks, the cat had managed to find him.

 

The cat followed at his heels while he took out walkers along the fence line; she napped with him in his secret spot; she crept up on him when he was changing the oil on his bike, and rolled around on her back, baring her belly in a show of trust. 

 

His comradery with his feline friend had apparently not as unnoticed as he had thought; as he had hoped.

 

She said, “I’d rather you take a little extra than give some of your own portion to her. You don’t eat enough as it is.”

 

He composed himself and then hazard a glance at her, and was surprised to see the total change in her demeanor. Her eyes were gentle, her shoulders looser, and her hands were splayed out and relaxed on the table. Even if it was just for the moment, her fondness over his bashfulness took her away from the dark place she’d been in, and if only for that, it was worth it that he’d met that damn cat.

 

He pocketed the pork and nodded a thanks at her. She placed a hand on his for no longer than a few seconds, and then pulled away.

 

“You’ll be late for fence duty,” she told him, and her shoulders began to rise up again. Her knuckles made a popping sound as she cracked them. He regarded her carefully.

 

“Off at ten tonight,” he told her, hoping she’d hear the wordless invitation so he wouldn’t have to say it.

 

“I told Beth I’d keep an eye on Judith until eleven, I don’t want to keep you up.”

 

“You won’t,” he said a bit quicker than he intended. He amended, “Usually can’t get to sleep until two if I’m lucky anyways.”

 

“You don’t sleep enough.”

 

“Pot, kettle.”

 

She laughed. “Yeah, that’s fair. I’ll swing by, but if you’re sleeping, I’m not waking you.”

 

“I won’t be,” he assured her, getting to his feet. He cast her one last look before heading out to the gates. 

 

—-

 

He waited for the cat, but she didn’t come.

 

He walked the fence line, expecting any moment for there to be a nip at his heels, but it didn’t come.

 

It was entirely unprecedented, and he didn’t even know which way to look for her; he still hadn’t worked out where and how she’d been getting place to place. The scraps of meat Carol stole for him burned a hole in his pocket as he chastised himself for getting worried over something as trivial as a cat. 

 

But he  _ was _ worried.

 

And so he did what he always did when his emotions became uncomfortable—ignored them. He busied himself by taking out walkers. He funneled his mounting anxiety into each thrust of the pole he used to smash in their skulls. One by one they fell, thud, thud, thud. He lifted the weapon to go in for the next kill, but froze in place.

 

The walker directly in front of him was chewing. It chewed with wide bites and sloppy, wet smacks, and hanging out of the left side of its drooping mouth was a bloodstained cat tail, a tuft of unstained white at the end. 

 

He went cold, even as the sun blazed down on his exposed skin.

 

It wasn't her. That's what he thought at first. His cat was deft and clever, much too skilled to end up as a dead man's meal. The walker ground gristle between its teeth, its fingers looped through the wire of the fence, flexing out towards Daryl's scent, the white tuft tucked in the corner of its mouth like a cottonwood seed.

 

It wasn't her, he thought, because it couldn't be. He'd brought her supper. It couldn't be her if he'd brought her supper.

 

The walker snarled, and Daryl swallowed. The makeshift spear dangled loosely in his hand. Nothing rubbed up against his shins, nor nipped softly at his elbows. All that was left of his cat was before him, lost to the new way of the world like so many before her.

 

Daryl did not feel sad. Daryl did not feel anything; didn't allow himself to. 

 

Except anger.

 

Daryl felt anger.

 

When he was in grade school, he'd gotten sent to the counselor’s office for slamming his fist into the cheekbone of Jimmy Mathers after he'd said Daryl's momma was “just another white-trash Dixon the world was better off without.”

 

Daryl's counselor had told him that anger was a secondary emotion, keeping the real emotion hidden from view. She'd asked, “What are you really feeling about what Jimmy said?” and Daryl merely nursed his bruised knuckles with sealed lips, and that was the first and last time anyone bothered to try and sympathize with him. He just wasn't worth the trouble.

 

But Daryl remembered those words—that anger was a secondary emotion.

 

He saw red when his daddy cracked his belt like a whip to keep the scared child inside at bay.

 

He fumed like a chimney when he delivered a dose of Narcan to an overdosing Merle so he wouldn't remember the emptiness of being abandoned.

 

He took the end of his pole and drove it into the face of the walker that ate his cat, over and over, until it was nothing but gory slop slumped against the fence, because with the world like it was, he didn't have the right to feel sadness over a pet that was never truly his in the first place.

 

Anger was a secondary emotion, but he much preferred it to the ones that came first.

 

—-

 

When Carol found him in his cell, he was sitting on the floor, back against his bunk, one leg straight out with the other bent to his chest, his eyes staring at the concrete wall in front of him and not seeing it at all.

 

“What happened?” she asked before saying anything else, and he turned his head her way and wondered when she’d gotten there. He thought back. The echoing of boots on the hard prison floor, the quiet shuffle of feet hesitating outside his door, the sound of the sheet he had pinned before the bars to give the illusion of privacy being gently pushed to the side—he’d heard her coming after all, he’d just forgotten to notice. He blinked at her, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth unconsciously. 

 

What was he supposed to say? 

 

When he’d been 4 years old, he’d been trampling through the forest near his house—shack, really—and he’d happened upon a pond surrounded by cattails. They towered over him, swaying casually in the breeze, and he pushed between them and knelt beside the water. He’d taken a twig and began drawing aimless lines in the mud, when a pale green frog hopped up on the shore right beside him.

 

He’d reached out towards it with calculated motions, fully expecting it to leap away into the water, but to his delighted surprise, he’d managed to get a fist around it. Trapped and frightened, it squirmed in his grasp and pissed on his palm, but it didn’t escape, and Daryl was triumphant. Just wait until Merle saw! He beamed with pride over his older brother’s assumed approval. He’d craddeled the frog gently and shouldered his way back through the thick of the cattails. 

 

At home, he’d gone in the front door, tracking mud through the already filthy living room where his father was splayed out on the recliner, snoring heavily, an empty bottle of beer lying below his dangling hand. He’d smelled cigarette smoke billowing from his parents’ bedroom, where his mother periodically jolted awake to pat out the burn holes in the sheets. Daryl had ignored them both, and went into his crowded closet of a room, found an old shoebox, and placed his frog inside it. He shut the lid tight and sat it under his bed where it would wait until his brother got home from the neighbor kid’s house

Hours passed. Daryl made himself a dinner of butter on bread, and flipped through comics on his bed. Finally, the front door had opened, and he heard his father grunt something and his brother grunt back. Daryl had jumped to his feet and went to summon his brother.

 

“Come see what I got, Merle,” he’d told him excitedly, beckoning him into his room, and with Merle watching with his arms crossed and his body leaning against the doorframe, Daryl pulled the shoebox out from under the bed and lifted the lid to show off his tremendous achievement.

 

Except when the lid came off, and Daryl looked down, something was immediately not right. 

 

His frog was now more grey than green, lying belly-up with stiff limbs. 

 

“Ya forgot to put air holes in the box, dumbass,” Merle had told him with a laugh. “Don’t try and flush it down the shitter, dad’ll whoop your ass if it gets backed up again.” And he turned and left without another word, leaving Daryl standing in the middle of his room with a shoebox full of dead frog. And even though he’d tossed it out into the yard and forced himself to forget it, he never looked at cattails the same way again.

 

The way he felt when he looked at cattails was just as stupid as the way he felt just then, staring at Carol with pain surely painted all over his face. 

 

She would think he was insane if he told her the truth. 

 

How was that conversation even supposed to go? 

 

_ Hey Carol, remember a month ago when I had to drive a knife through my brother's skull? _

 

_ Remember when Andrea shot herself in the head so she wouldn't turn? _

 

_ Remember back at the farm when I promised you I’d get your little girl back alive, only I didn't and now you always have to live with the memory of that pistol going off in your baby’s rotted face? _

 

_ Well, none of that is bothering me. No, I’m sitting here like a pissbaby all because of a cat. _

 

“Daryl?” she pressed when he still hadn't spoken. He'd have to find something to tell her. “What is it?” She sounded so worried. He opened his mouth, fully intending to reassure her, to say “nothin’” and go on with his life, but when he spoke, the words that tumbled out, in his usual, mumbled grunt of a voice, completely without permission, were,

 

“Walker ate my cat.”

 

And he rebuked himself instantly. He awaited her laughter. He awaited her disappointment, because how ridiculous was it that the man who took a bullet to the head just to bring her back her daughter's doll was now being put out of commission by a dead cat? Hell, he'd  _ eaten _ cat before on the road. The whole thing didn't make a lick of sense, and Carol was going to call him on his bullshit, and he was going to deserve every word.

 

She stepped inside fully so that she stood directly in front of him. He eyed her warily as she got into a squat so they were eye level, and tensed in surprise as she wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders and said, “Oh Daryl, I’m so sorry.”

 

Perhaps she hadn't heard him correctly?

 

He blinked several times at the top of her head resting on his chest as she squeezed him even tighter. “'S’okay,” he said, “'S just a cat.”

 

“No she wasn't,” said Carol, finally pulling away. She sat down properly on the ground. “She was yours.”

 

Daryl opened his mouth to object, but he didn't know how when her words made his heart feel a bit hollow. Was that sadness? He'd used up all his anger, so was that what he was left with? Emotions, he decided resolutely as he closed his mouth, were bullshit.

 

He suddenly couldn’t look at her. He became very interested in the top of his left boot, and was grateful, but not surprised, when she didn’t pressure him to face her.

 

“How’d it happen?” she asked, and the gentleness in her voice made his cheeks grow hot with shame. This was all stupid, stupid,  _ stupid _ . 

 

“Didn’t see it,” he grunted, fiddling with his shoelace. “Guess they just got the better of her.” 

 

“I’m kind of surprised. She was pretty stealthy; survived this long.”

 

“Yeah, well.” He picked a bit of dirt off the bottom of his pant leg and flicked it across the floor. “They get us all eventually.” 

 

“Not you.”

 

“Not yet.”

 

“Not me.”

 

“No,” he agreed full-heartedly. “Not you.” He hazard a glance up at her and found her giving him a small, warm smile that filled the pit in his heart some, but he didn’t feel he deserved it. He asked, “Why you bein’ so nice about this?” 

 

“How do you mean?”

 

“I mean it’s just…” He shook his head and broke eye contact again, instead turning his focus to picking grit out of his fingernails. “It’s stupid. Bein’ this bent out of shape over somethin’ small.”

 

“It’s not stupid, Daryl,” she said. He didn’t say anything to that. “Hey,” she said sharply, and he startled as she reached over and placed two fingers under his chin so that he’d lift his head towards her. “It’s not.” 

 

Daryl scratched absently at an imaginary itch on his cheek, regarding her for a long moment, before he shrugged one shoulder. He didn’t look away, but it took everything in his power not to. She sighed in a sort of long-suffering way, but she did it with the same warm smile.

 

“You don’t always get to choose what things are going to upset you,” she said. 

 

“Ain’t like no person died.”

 

“No, but your pet did, and I’m not surprised in the slightest that it’s making you upset.”

 

“Why?” he asked, because he didn’t understand it, so how could she. Her smile took on a more amused air. 

 

“Because I know you,” she said simply. Daryl frowned; thought it through. Maybe she did.

 

“Tell me why, then.”

 

“Why what?”

 

“Why am I sitting on this fuckin’ floor right now?” 

 

In response, Carol scooted over so that she could easily push Daryl’s hair behind his ear, and held her hand there against the side of his head. He didn’t shy away from the touch, which Carol must have known he wouldn’t, because, supposedly, she knew him. She said, “Because you care. You care deeper than half these people in the prison put together. You care enough to risk your life for a baby who, for all intents and purposes, shouldn’t be able to live in a world like this. You care enough to spend your days out huntin’ to provide for people that you have no responsibility for.” She let out a small breath and lightly scratched her fingers along his scalp. She said the next bit in a whisper. “You care enough to nearly die for a little girl we both knew in our hearts was already dead, just to stop her momma from cryin’. Of course you’re upset over that damned cat, Daryl, it’s just the type of person that you are.” 

 

Daryl put a hand over hers, fully intending to gently move her away, but his brain got its signals crossed, and he ended up tangling their fingers together instead. He didn’t know what to say to that, or rather, he had a million things to say to that, but couldn’t bring himself to say them. 

 

_ Why do you give a damn about knowing me, anyhow? _

 

_ You’re wrong, I never believed she was dead until I saw it for myself. _

 

_ If you know me so well, tell me why I can sit here hating myself and the world and all the people in it, and then you come in for five minutes and suddenly I’m put right again? _

 

What actually came out of his mouth was, “She was a damn good cat.”

 

“She was,” Carol agreed.

 

“I know you too, y’know.” He was tired of the focus being on him; it was time to dish it out.

 

“And what do you know about me?” Their hands fell to their knees but their fingers remained intertwined.

 

“That shit that happened in the infirmary, it’s botherin’ you more than you’re lettin’ on.” 

 

Only Daryl would have been able to catch the miniscule shift in her face that occurred when he brought up the woman’s miscarriage. There was a pain etched so deep inside Carol that it came out like an iceberg—small on the top, but monumental at the base.

 

“I can't let things like that bother me anymore.”

 

“Can't always choose what things are gonna upset you,” he said, parroting a version of her own words back at her. She smirked at him.

 

“Don’t play dirty,” she said, tracing small circles onto his palm. 

 

“Then don’t lie.” 

 

She sighed. “What do you want me to say? That I’m tired of loss? Tired of bad news? You know what her losing that baby makes me think about, it makes you think about it to, why do I gotta say it?” 

 

“You ain’t gotta say nothin’. Just want you to be okay.”

 

She smiled wistfully down at their entangled hands before looking back up at him. “Because you care.”

 

“Care about you.” He said it quietly, barely audible, and she inhaled deeply. Daryl flushed a little; he usually said things like that with his actions, not his voice. His words seemed to have taken on a mind of their own.

 

Her tongue traced the bottom of her lip and her eyes darted towards his quickly, but long enough for him to catch it. He instantly got butterflies in his stomach, with rapidly fluttering wings.

 

She teased him a lot. She would throw him innuendos and dirty jokes, but always with a laugh or an elbow to the side. She said them in jest, to get a blush out of him, to entertain herself, because she was pretty, and smart, and so very guarded, that why would she ever look twice at a man like him?

 

But she was looking twice. And a third time as well, as she drew her gaze back down to his mouth much slower this time, and fixed it there, her face set in an expression of deep thought, as though weighing pros and cons, and Daryl swallowed thickly.

 

When she moved in closer, she did so like she were approaching a nervous animal; like she was expecting him to startle and run at any moment. It wasn’t unreasonable of her—it was taking every inch of his willpower not to tense or pull away. She got within a breath’s distance from him, and he could make out every freckle across the bridge of her nose. She paused there, maybe waiting for him to close this distance, but she’d be waiting a long time if she was. Even this obvious a sign wasn’t enough to convince Daryl that what she wanted was him. 

 

But Carol knew him, and so quickly deduced this. She pressed her lips against his tenderly. He couldn’t remember a time when he had been touched so gently. Touch, in his mind, did not have pleasurable connotations, but he didn’t shy away from hers. He sat stock still as she pressed harder—an encouragement, he realized. He pressed back, the most miniscule amount.

 

It was enough. Carol took his inch and turned it into a mile, taking her hand not gripping his, and placed it on the back of his neck. She tilted her head and opened her mouth against his, and his heart constricted as the tip of her tongue ran smoothly against the seam of his lips just as he had watched her do along her own bottom lip just moments before. He took in a shuddering breath through his nose, but let her in, and her tongue slid against his own.

 

Daryl was not a skilled kisser, but he was a skilled observer, and so he paid attention to her movements and mirrored them. The kiss deepened, and the pads of her fingers pressed harder against his neck, while her nails dug little grooves in the skin. He could hear his own heart beating in his temples. This was entirely unfounded, and he felt as though he were free-falling with only her to hold onto. She nipped at his lip and a surge of arousal went through him unexpectedly, causing a tightening in his groin, and he pulled away as though he’d been electrocuted. 

 

With her one hand holding him steady by the back of his head, she untangled their fingers and put her other hand against his cheek. “Okay?” she asked. He wasn’t sure how she expected him to answer. His words, so eager to tumble out on their own volition before, had vanished. He wasn’t entirely sure he even still spoke English at the moment. He only knew how to communicate through body signals, as if, perhaps, he really were just a scared animal. “Do you want to stop?”

 

What he wanted was for things to make sense again, but even still, when he thought of her pulling away from him, and the hypothetical feeling of her absence, it made his stomach clench. Maybe it didn’t need to make sense. Very, very slowly, he shook his head.

 

Carol looked behind her and reached over to make sure the sheet to the cell was covering the entrance. She then turned back to him, and, clearly emboldened by his approval, climbed onto his lap, her legs straddling his thighs. She wrapped her arms around his back, and the angle of him slouched against the bunk meant that she was taller than him. He stared up at her with a blank face, too many emotions competing for his expression. How had they gotten here?

 

As though reading his mind, she said, “Look, we both had a shit day, and we both know we’ll have another shit day all too soon. Let’s fool around and have something good, if only for a little while.”

 

He couldn’t say ‘okay’ because he still couldn’t speak. Instead, he placed his hands tentatively on her hips, right at the hem of her shirt, and skated a finger over a sliver of her bare skin. She sighed deeply, as though that single hint of a touch was overwhelming. It certainly was for him.

 

She dipped back down then, with less warning than before, and he startled. She ran a hand up and down his back to tell him it was okay, it was just her, and he relaxed a little, letting his mouth get captured in hers. As the kiss became heated, he couldn’t stop himself from getting aroused. She brushed over him, and he knew there was no way she didn’t notice his erection. He blushed crimson, but she made a hum of approval in his mouth and ground herself down against the bulge in his jeans, eliciting a sharp intake of breath from him.

 

Daryl had not had a lot of sex, and almost never sober, and almost never when he genuinely wanted to. Up until then, sex had been either an obligation or something to pass the time. His first ever experience was Merle locking him up in their shared trailer with a working girl he’d paid to ‘make a man’ out of his little brother, and Daryl had gone through with it just to avoid the lecture. Every time after that, and there were not many, he’d done it because he was drunk, bored, and depressed, and sometimes the girls were pretty and were decent to him. Never did it mean anything, though.

 

This already felt like it may mean something.

 

It scared the hell out of him.

 

He tried to ignore the fear attempting to creep through him, as he let his hands wander underneath her shirt, feeling the outline of her ribs. Carol tore herself away from him and for a second he thought he’d crossed a line, until she reached down and tugged her shirt off in one fell swoop, and tossed it haphazardly somewhere on the prison cell floor. 

 

She gave him a minute to take her in. She had seen Carol in various stages of undress before—it was hard to avoid with the close quarters they’d all kept—but this was different. He had never allowed himself to truly  _ look  _ at her. The freckles that dotted her face also dotted her shoulders and chest. She wasn’t as thin as she had been on the road, but was still closer to malnourished than Daryl would have preferred. Her bra was old and stained, with the wire partially exposed. She had bruises from recent missions, and scars from a life of abuse. 

 

She was the most beautiful thing Daryl had ever seen.

 

He realized after a moment that Carol was looking down, insecure under his scrutiny, and he was reminded that he wasn’t the only one who had a history of negative trying to overshadow the good. He wanted desperately to tell her she was beautiful, but that was far beyond his capabilities, so he decided to show her instead.

 

He wrapped his arms around her and gripped her tightly with large hands, and began placing kisses along her collarbone. She lifted her head and let him suck gently at her neck. She smelled like the sweat from working a full day, and he loved it. He slid his hand so that it hovered near her breast, but hesitated. Carol laughed breathily and grabbed him by the wrist and plopped his hand onto the swell of her chest. He felt like an over-excited teenage boy as he pawed inexpertly at her breast, but she didn’t seem to mind. On the contrary, she reached behind herself and undid the clasp and let her bra slump forward. Daryl all but ripped it the rest of the way off of her, and licked and kissed her chest.

 

She began trailing a line down his jaw with her tongue. She nipped at his skin, and kissed his shoulder where it was exposed from where he’d cut off his sleeves. She pushed his vest off and Daryl moved his arms from her so that she could take it off him fully. Once it fell to the ground with a heavy thud, both of his hands flew back to her breasts, and she began working the buttons on his shirt.

 

He stilled when she began touching his bare chest. She ran her fingers through the light hair, and her nails brushed across his nipples. He watched her warily as she started to push his shirt off to join his vest, but instinctively he reached up and grabbed her by the wrists to stop her. 

 

“I’ve seen them,” Carol said, knowing Daryl’s fear before he had to try and force himself to voice it. “And you’ve seen mine.” 

 

He regarded her for a long moment before letting her loose. She kept her eyes trained on his as she went back to sliding his shirt down his muscular arms. When it was all the way off, he closed his eyes to steady himself. Carol stroked his hair gently, murmuring soft reassurances, and he managed to look at her again. She asked him if he was okay with the furrow in her brow, and he nodded.

 

He did, however, need a reprieve from the touch, just for a little while. Without forewarning, he gathered her up in his arms and scooped her onto the bottom bunk. She let out a squeal of surprised, and then quickly covered her mouth. A sheet on the door wasn’t much for privacy. He smirked at her, and then immediately turned his attention to the fly of her pants. 

 

“Shoes,” she told him, nudging him in the side with her boot. He frowned, and scooted down to start untying them. He fumbled frustratingly with the laces.

 

Once her boots had been chucked to the floor with the collection of other insundry articles of clothing, he went back to her partially undone pants. She lifted her hips for him to pull them off, and he tried, and failed, to be graceful about tugging them down her legs. She laughed good-naturedly at him as he grumbled when her pants bunched and stuck on the way down. 

 

Getting another person undressed was needlessly complicated, he decided.

 

He tossed her pants aside and leaned up to give her a quick kiss to regain his composure. He then knelt between her thighs, where her plain pair of panties were already soaked through. His cheeks went hot at the thought that she was that turned on because of him. A thousand intrusive thoughts flew through his brain: 

 

_ It’s just because she hasn’t gotten some in forever.  _

 

_ She may want to have sex with you, but that doesn’t mean she’s sweet on you. _

 

_ You’re just the only guy available. _

 

He gave a brief shake of his head, and decidedly ignored all of it, and instead, focused his attention on curling his fingers beneath the elastic of her panties, and peeling them down. They slid off with considerable more grace than her pants or boots, and his heart quickened as he pulled them delicately over her feet. He crawled up between her again, and looked to her for the okay. 

 

She was nervous, he could tell, stark naked and eyeing him with the same wariness he’d given her when she’d removed his shirt. She swallowed thickly.

 

“You don’t have to. Ed never…He thought it was disgusting,” she explained, cheeks turning pink. Daryl couldn’t help but scoff.

 

There were things about his prior sex life that he was not fond of—overstimulation from unfamiliar hands, forced intimacy—it all made the act somewhat unappealing. But there was one thing he had always enjoyed from the beginning. 

 

In short, Daryl Dixon loved eating pussy. 

 

It was the perfect sex act, in his opinion. It required less physical touch from his partner, it turned him on, and frankly, it was fun. The unsurprising fact that Ed Peletier thought eating a woman out to be beneath him merely served to lower Daryl’s already rock bottom opinion of him. It wasn’t Daryl’s fault the man wasn’t a connoisseur of fine foods.

 

Daryl raised an eyebrow at Carol, letting her know that this confession had done nothing to deter him. She let out a long string of breath through pursed lips. “Okay,” she whispered. That was all the permission Daryl needed.

 

He started in by kissing along the inside of her thighs. Her skin was soft, and he could smell her scent as he made his way up. He placed the smallest of kisses where her thigh met her pelvis, and she trembled. 

 

She hadn’t shaved recently, which he couldn’t have cared less about. Frankly, the wildlife survivor in him didn’t understand it when the women in the group complained with each other about having unshaved legs and arms and whatever else. That’s where the hair was  _ supposed  _ to be.

 

He placed two fingers between her folds and flattened his tongue down and dragged it along her seam. She inhaled sharply as he dipped his tongue briefly inside, getting the full taste of her. He replaced his tongue there with a finger, that he slid in deep and began a ‘come hither’ motion, while he turned his attention to the button of flesh at the top of her vulva. 

 

Being the sex act he preferred the most, eating women out was therefore the sex act he had the most confidence in. It was all about observation and implementation, and he was more than capable of that. He encircled Carol’s clit with his tongue. Her breath was sharp, so he went at it lighter, and continued at that pressure when she hummed in pleasure. 

 

His free hand gripped her knee, and he could feel the quickening of her pulse. He found a motion that caused her to fling her arm to her mouth and bite down between her index finger and thumb, and he kept it going. The same motion, same pressure, sliding one more finger inside her and pressing hard into her soft, wet walls. 

 

He could feel her ab muscles tightening, and the inside of her constricting. He didn’t relent, and soon she was letting out sharp, muffled moans into the hand in her mouth, every muscle in her body tensing. 

 

Daryl kept up the motions until she started to come down. He removed his soaking fingers from her slowly, and met her gaze. She looked absolutely wrecked, flushed and sweating, staring at him like he just found the cure for the walkers. Not being able to help the small smile tugging at his lips, he finally found his words.

 

“You okay, sweetheart?” 

 

His own tone sounded unfamiliar to him, and it took him a minute to realize it was because it was laced with pride.

 

“Get up here,” she said breathlessly, making feeble tugs on his wrist. He did as he was told and went and found her mouth, giving her a taste of herself with his tongue. “I want you,” she breathed, and it was those words that made him aware of how hard he was, still trapped inside his jeans.

 

“Okay,” he mumbled. He moved away from her reluctantly, and worked at his own boots. He peeled off his own pants and under things in record time, much more efficiently than he had done with hers, and climbed back on top of her. 

 

He took a moment to just look at her. She radiated off so much affection, he could almost believe it was all for him. He pushed a few strands of damp hair off her face and kissed her temple. 

 

“Don’t got nothin’ for this,” he told her, resting his forehead on hers. She let out a noise of acknowledgement.

 

“I know. I trust you.” 

 

Trust him with what, specifically, she didn’t clarify. Trust him to know himself well enough to pull out so she wouldn’t meet the same fate as Lori? To keep her safe if he did get her pregnant? Her blind faith in him was terrifying.

 

“You sure?”

 

“I am,” she said, sounding more sure than Daryl had ever been about anything. He chewed on his bottom lip and nodded.

 

She opened her legs for him, and he pushed inside of her, sliding in easy from the aftermath of her orgasm. She was warm and perfect around him, and he knew that no woman before her ever felt this good, and no woman ever could. She hummed contentedly, and held him close to her body as he began thrusting slowly.

 

He gained momentum. She mumbled a series of nonsense words in his ear, and he knew he wasn’t going to last long. He told her as much, and she responded by maneuvering his head so that she could kiss him hard on the lips. He sighed into her mouth, and then buried his face in her neck, his movements becoming arrhythmic. He went as long as he could, but before long he felt a tightening in his groin. 

 

“Baby, I gotta—” 

 

_ Sweetheart _ .  _ Baby _ . His words were back to having a mind of their own, but Carol seemed pleased. 

 

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” she assured him, petting his hair. 

 

“Fuck,” he muttered, and pulled out of her and came hard on her bare belly. It was the most intense orgasm he could remember in recent memory. He saw white for several seconds, and then slumped forward, resting his head on her shoulder as he heaved heavy breaths. She caressed his back.

 

When he had the strength, he lifted himself up. He looked down at his mess, and mumbled, “hold on,” before reaching over for his discarded pants and pulling out a handkerchief from the back pocket. He cleaned her up, and Carol laughed.

 

“A southern gentleman,” she said in a lazy, post-coital voice. Daryl huffed at that. He finished and tossed the handkerchief back with the rest of the mess on the floor. He turned on his side and pulled Carol into him. She gave a noise of approval, and said, “I didn’t take you for a cuddler.”

 

“Stop,” he said, mostly because he never took himself for one either. There were a lot of things about himself that Carol seemed to bring out. 

 

“Nothing’s fixed,” she said, not unhappily, but factually.

 

“Wasn’t s’posed to fix nothin’,” he reminded her. “Was just s’posed to be somethin’ good. Was it?” he added, suddenly self-conscious. Carol chuckled, stroking his forearm. 

 

“Better than,” she said, finding his hand with hers and lacing their fingers together again. Daryl was glad her back was to him so she couldn’t see his bashful grin. They stayed like that in silence for some time, and Daryl thought Carol may have fallen asleep, until she said, “I’m sorry about your cat.”

 

“Mm,” Daryl said, caressing her thumb with his. “Me too.” 

 

“Don’t feel bad about loving her. She lived a better life because you did. That’s all we can really hope for in this world, you know? Being loved and having people to love to make life worth living.”

 

Daryl couldn’t respond to that, but he knew Carol didn’t expect him to. She knew him, and he knew her. Instead, he held her closer, her body flush against his, and placed a kiss behind her ear.

 

“Get some sleep,” he told her. 

 

“Here?” she asked.

 

“‘Course.” 

 

He listened to her breathing even out, until eventually following suit. In his dreams he followed the white-tipped cat through the forest to a pond surrounded by tall cattails, but he wasn’t heartbroken at the sight of them. He pushed them apart and found Carol sitting on the edge of the water, a frog in her palm. She held out a hand to him. He took it and sat beside her in the mud. She leaned her head against his shoulder and smiled wistfully at the sky. She said,

 

“See, Daryl? Not everything is lost.” 


End file.
